Undeniable (19 page)

Most of the paparazzi are calling for Heidi, Ben and Johnny, but I hear one of them shout to Spencer. He pulls his hand away from mine and turns away from me, shielding his face with his hand,
as he gets in a taxi.

In all of the confusion, we don’t even get to say goodbye properly.

One of the photographers is standing next to me. It is a bit calmer now most of the cast have gone. ‘Who are you, then?’ he asks gruffly.

‘Oh, I’m just a runner.’

‘That fun, is it?’

‘Oh my God, it’s awesome. Well, I’m totally obsessed with
The Halls
and everyone in it anyway, but working there is amazing.’

‘You friends with any of them?’ He’s fiddling with his camera, but looks up and smiles at me. He’s got a round, friendly face a bit like my dad.

‘Yeah, Jen is really nice in real life. And Spencer Black . . . he’s my sort-of boyfriend.’

I should probably stop telling people that.

Spencer is in a suit. I ask him if he’s celebrating the advert money coming through and he says, ‘I haven’t filmed the advert yet!’ like that was a
stupid thing to say, which I suppose it was. He tells me he got some more guilt money out of his dad.

He meets me in the lobby and takes me past the reception. The hotel is
enormous
. My heels make a noise a bit like horses’ hooves on the marble stairs. I’ve got my little black
dress on from Primark, which I wear for anything a bit posh, although it must be about a tenth of the price of Spencer’s suit. I suddenly remember it’s the dress I wore in Paris with
Max.

I give my bag in at the desk and they say someone will take it up to our room.

‘It’s like being a grown-up!’ I whisper to Spencer as we head towards the restaurant.

‘I am a grown-up,’ he replies.

‘All right, knob!’

He laughs.

The restaurant bit seems really silent. I guess it’s because it’s so big that none of the tables are very near each other. It’s really posh, but in a completely different way
to Radleigh Castle. It’s all in 1920s style and there’s a huge chandelier in the middle of the ceiling with glittering gems hanging off it.

Spencer seems distracted. Before we order he goes off to take a phone call from his agent, leaving me absolutely starving. I look longingly at the waiting staff as they go past in the hope that
they will take pity on me and give me some more free bread.

One of them does – a smiley waitress called Flo. She brings me some butter as well and I tell her that I love her, just as Spencer comes back.

He raises his eyebrows. ‘I knew if I left you alone you’d go off with a waitress!’

He’s more relaxed now and we sit there chatting. It feels like we are in our own little bubble. Then Flo comes over with the starters and Spencer has his elbow where she needs to put the
plate on the table. I give him a nudge and he moves it, but he doesn’t look up at her or say thank you when she puts the food down; he just carries on talking.

‘Spencer!’

‘What?’ He looks up, shocked.

‘You didn’t say thank you!’

‘Okay . . .’

‘It’s rude.’ I wave my hand to help make my point – and knock over my glass of water. The water runs all over the table, down towards Spencer’s side and then drips
onto his trousers. He jumps up.

‘For fuck’s sake! What’s wrong with you? It’s embarrassing taking you out.’

I stare at him, open-mouthed. That came from nowhere. I have two options really: the mature thing, which is stand up and leave, or throw my wine over him.

Actually, I do both.

I storm off towards the lifts. It’s really hard to storm when you then have to wait for the lift to arrive. I keep pushing the button, willing it to get there before
Spencer catches up with me. He appears round the corner and it occurs to me that I don’t know where our room is or have the key.

By the time the lift doors open, Spencer is standing next to me. I talk with my eyes straight ahead, determined not to look at him.

‘Can I have the key, please?’

‘Look, Gabi—’

‘Actually, you can come with me and let me into the room. But don’t talk to me.’

We stand in the lift and he presses the button.

‘Gabi, I snapped. I was in a bad mood.’

‘You seemed in a good mood when you got off the phone to your agent, actually.’

‘Well, I mean I had loads of stuff to think about. Really important stuff.’

The inside of the lift doors is a mirror, so despite my efforts I am looking right at him. He looks flushed and there’s still an angry glint in his eye, possibly because he’s
thinking about his expensive new suit that is now covered in red wine.

We both stare at each other in silence as the lift doors open behind us. It’s this weird intense stare, like we don’t know whether to carry on arguing or make up. I turn to leave a
moment before he does and I collide with him. As my hand brushes his, energy rushes through me and suddenly my skin feels like it’s on fire. Spencer looks at me, his mouth slightly open and
his eyes sparkling, like he’s felt it too. We move together and kiss. It’s one deep, hard kiss without a breath that makes me feel almost like I could get lost in him. It feels like an
effort to break the spell and move apart. Then the lift doors start to close again and Spencer puts his hand out to stop them.

Before I know it, we’re in our expensive room. His hand slides up my leg, under my dress and I gasp as his fingers brush against me. I turn my head to the side and he kisses my neck as his
fingers rub softly at first and then firmer.

My eyes are closed at first and then a moan escapes me and I open them. For some unknown reason, as the hotel room comes into focus, the thought appears in my brain that if it were me and Max
staying in a hotel, the first thing we would have done is make a pile on the bed of free stuff from the room.

And I start laughing.

Spencer’s hand freezes. He moves it away and then looks at me, with his other hand still pressed to the wall above me. He looks a bit freaked out and is waiting for an explanation.

I’m still throbbing with desire, but also panic and that urge to laugh.

‘Sorry . . . I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

‘No . . .’ he says slowly. ‘I’m not totally sure either!’

‘It’s just . . . it’s a risk, isn’t it? Every little thing is a risk and I could go for it and you could turn out to be a psychopath and it’s really weird because
with most things I do just go for it and don’t think and now—’

‘Gabi,’ he says softly. ‘It’s fine. Just . . . chill. Take as long as you want to decide if I’m a psychopath.’

‘It’s just that this is all new, and I thought I’d be all cool with that, but I’m not. I’m mental.’

His mouth twists into a smile. ‘Well, just so you know, I’d prefer to be with you, mental, than anyone else, sane.’

He kisses me, gently now, understanding a little more. ‘Shall we watch films in our pyjamas and drink free tea?’

I have no idea where I am. All the shapes in the room are strange and don’t make sense. Slowly my eyes adjust to the darkness. White hotel sheets. Spencer. I peer over
the side of the bed. White floor with a dark shape on it. It looks like a dead bird. A massive dead bird. One of those black beaky ones, like a raven or a crow. Are they different?

‘Spencer,’ I whisper.

He grunts and rolls to the side.

‘Spencer!’

‘What?’ His voice is muffled and sleepy.

‘There’s a dead bird on the floor.’

‘No, there isn’t.’

‘There is. There definitely is. Can you take it out?’

He rolls onto his front with his face on the pillow. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Spencer, there’s a dead bird on the floor and if you don’t help me get rid of it then I’m going home. It’s disgus— Oh no, wait. It’s just my
bra.’

Now everything makes a lot more sense.

Spencer raises his head from the pillow. ‘You thought your bra was a dead bird.’

‘I thought I saw a beak.’

He puts his forehead down on the pillow again. In despair, I think. Then I realise he’s laughing.

He looks up at me. I’m sitting up, poised in what I must have thought was a good position for dead-bird watching. He holds his arm out to me. I can’t see his face properly in the
half-light, but I know he’s smiling and his eyes are sparkling.

I slide down and fit into the crook of his body. He puts his arm round me and clasps his hand over mine. He leans over and whispers in my ear. ‘I love you a little bit, Gabi.’

It takes all my effort not to leap out of the bed and jump up and down. But I just smile a huge, wide smile that he can’t see and squeeze his hand.

‘Good.’

When I wake up he’s gone, but there’s a note.

I can’t stop grinning. I want to phone Mia and tell her everything. I jump off the bed and do a mad dance over to my bag to get my phone. Ooh, I have an email alert.

There are five pictures of me and Spencer coming out of the restaurant and I do look a lot like a stalker. One of them was taken just as he pulled his hand away from mine, so
I’m reaching after him and I have red eyes.

Then I scroll further down the page and my eye catches on something in the comments at the bottom.

The link goes to the article from the local paper last year about my dad.

A reporter came to the house when only Dad was in. He’d just been discharged from hospital and Mum had gone out to get some food. The reporter told Dad he just wanted to
give his side of the story and so Dad chatted to him, like he does to absolutely everyone who knocks at our door – we usually have to send Millie out to stop Dad from signing up to some
scheme or becoming a Mormon. Dad invited the journalist in for a cup of tea and told him everything. The journalist stole a picture of Grandpa and one of Dad from the night we all went to a
Sing-a-long-a-Sound-of-Music and he was dressed as a brown paper package tied up with string. They didn’t even explain that when they ran the article, which made people think that he had his
breakdown while wearing a cardboard box.

When Millie and I got in from school we could tell immediately that there was something dodgy about the man. We shouted at him and chased him out of the door. In the article he said that, as
well as dealing with his grief, Dad was struggling to control his two rampaging teenage daughters, which must have contributed. It went into loads of detail about him flinging tins of beans around
the supermarket, tipping over stalls of flowers and trying to tear at his own clothes. And there were interviews with people – someone in the supermarket who’d been hit by a flying
potato speculated on what Dad would have done if he’d had a knife, and a mum from our school said she wasn’t surprised because Dad had always been weird.

I told Granny that when sad things happen I let everything build up and pretend I’m fine – just like Dad did. And that I’m worried I’ll end up doing something mad like
him. She said that the thing that annoyed her most about the article was that it made out there was such a thing as ‘mad’ and ‘normal’.

‘Everyone has something,’ she said, ‘and everyone deals with life in different ways. I can’t promise you’ll always be okay, but I can promise that you will always
have people around to help you.’

And I will. Unless I break their heart and push them away.

I storm out of the room and walk straight into Spencer in the lobby. He has an armful of flowers, a paper bag and a box of chocolates in his other hand. Up until that point I’ve been
telling myself that the comment could have just been some random person from home who saw the article when it came out. Then I see his face.

‘I’m
so
sorry. My agent was asking me about you and I told her your name. I thought it would be some story about a love triangle on set – you, me and Heidi. I
didn’t think it would make you out to be crazy.’